The Infant Hercules Subduing the Serpent

In the period from the mid-1630s until his death in 1654, Alessandro Algardi was recognized as one of the major proponents of Italian baroque sculpture in Rome, rivaling the great Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). This energetic bronze, cast during Algardi’s lifetime or shortly thereafter, reveals a number of stylistic values inherited from the High Renaissance—attention to structure, classicizing anatomical proportions, precise description of details, and intensity of expression.  The subject is based on an ancient Greek myth in which the infant Hercules fights with a snake placed in his crib by the goddess Hera. The child of an illicit union between Hera’s husband, Zeus, and the mortal Alcmene, Hercules was able to thwart Hera’s jealous attempts to destroy him. Endowed with supernatural strength, Hercules eventually gained immortality through a series of labors. Pagan myths like the labors of Hercules had been appropriated by neoplatonist thinkers and interpreted by Italian artists since the mid-15th century as moralizing allegories that paralleled Christian aspirations. There is a second, nearly identical bronze in the Smart Museum collection, attributed to Algardi’s French pupil Michel Anguier [Accession no. 1977.101].

Resource: The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Sue Taylor and Richard A. Born (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 1990), 48–49.